


deux

by targe (headlong)



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-03-26 07:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headlong/pseuds/targe
Summary: The first reviews for Trois are out, and nearly every one praises the chemistry between Camus and Ai. Which is strange, because Camus definitely doesn’t remember including anything like that in his performance.





	1. Chapter 1

The day after _Trois_ premieres, Camus lets himself sleep late. It’s a rare luxury, and one he isn’t entirely sure he wants. But the cast have all been told, in no uncertain terms, to take a rest day; last night’s showing was for an audience of press and special guests, and with the season proper starting tomorrow, it’s important they keep themselves in peak condition. Shining Theatre, which uses its ensemble of idols as its major selling point, has no understudies.

He showers and dresses, uninterrupted by his housemates. He’s not sure what any of them are planning to do with all the time on their hands but, as he approaches the main room, he prepares for the worst. In practice, though, the only one in there is Kotobuki, curled up on a couch. He pauses at the doorway to set the pros of going in (food) against the cons (having to deal with someone this soon after waking up) – but, before he can decide, he gets spotted.

“Goooooood morning, Myu!”

He doesn’t bother with a response, just takes the hit and strides in. Kotobuki, of course, takes that as an invitation to keep talking.

“Sleep well?”

“Fine.”

Kotobuki doesn’t push the conversation, but he does shoot Camus a look he deeply, deeply doesn’t like. Not that most of his bandmate’s expressions bode well, but this one is particularly bad. Isn’t he too old for these displays of feigned innocence?

“What.”

“Nothing, nothing! I was just wondering if you’d read the reviews for _Trois_ yet.”

“Why would I have.”

“I don’t know,” he says, with the same playfulness in his tone. “But I thought they were interesting, so maybe you will too.”

Despite Kotobuki’s cheerful idiocy, he never does anything without motive. And while the reasons behind his actions often turn out to be arcane or stupid, he’s definitely trying to get at something here. So Camus, going against every instinct he has, decides to bite. 

“Fine.”

“If I were you,” says Kotobuki, “and I wanted to know what people were saying, I’d start with the _Arts Review_.”

He’s named the country’s most prestigious entertainment magazine, with the power to make or break a production at the whim of its reviewers. And there’s no way _Trois_ flopped – Camus knows for a fact it was good, plus Kotobuki doesn’t seem upset – so what could he possibly be on about?

Nothing about this doesn’t bother him, but he pulls up the publication’s site on his phone. Their review of _Trois_ is right near the top; expected, given its nature as a highly-anticipated, high-budget new production. He puts off raiding the pantry to flick through it and, about a third of the way down, he finds what he was supposed to be looking for.

 _Camus has always been good, but he’s undoubtedly matured as an actor since Shining Theatre’s last season (or, perhaps, even since_ Lost Alice _). There’s a realness and vulnerability to his performance as Athos that his previous roles have lacked; perhaps it’s because, in Mikaze, he’s finally found a co-star who can match his intensity. The rapport the pair demonstrate speaks to their trust in each other, not just as long-time bandmates, but as people. Even when Athos and Aramis are at loggerheads, they share a genuine chemistry which shines through._

_This isn’t to understate the strength of the entire ensemble, however. In any other production, Kurusu’s passionate take on Porthos would be a star-making performance. On a stage dominated by Camus and Mikaze’s elaborate push-pull, though, he often comes dangerously close to a third wheel..._

There’s a photo under that paragraph, taken in one of the early scenes where his and Mikaze’s characters argue. They’re not touching, because neither Athos nor Aramis would stoop to violence, but there’s a strange intimacy to the way they’re positioned nevertheless: Mikaze’s chin tilted up in defiance, Camus leaning in just enough to be threatening. Suddenly, he isn’t hungry at all.

When he glances up, he finds Kotobuki looking at him, completely placid. Camus, on the other hand, knows he’s scowling. This whole article is – it’s drivel. Absolutely ridiculous. He’d worked out what playing Athos would demand of him very early on, what he’d need to feed into the role to produce just the right combination of rigidness, honour and sympathy. And he certainly hadn’t included – what was the phrase they had used? _Realness and vulnerability_. Honestly.

“Why did you want me to read this.”

“Try _Theatre Now_ next,” says Kotobuki, ignoring the threat in his tone. “Or _Dress Circle_ , or _Tokyo Onstage_.”

Camus doesn’t acknowledge the leads, just brings them up in his browser. Once he skims past the preliminaries, what he finds is more of the same. _Camus and Mikaze are all sizzling tension_ and _the sparks are almost palpable_ and _whether they’re at each other’s throats or at each other’s backs, their dynamic feels natural in a way most leading duos can only dream of_. All in all, the impression he gets is that, aided by Mikaze, he may have turned in the performance of his career – but if that had been the case, shouldn’t he have known it?

He pockets his phone with slightly more force than necessary. This is exactly why he doesn’t read reviews of any kind; their next show is tomorrow night, and he can’t have it compromised by his thoughts on the consensus he’s been smouldering at his co-star. The quickest way to the bottom of this – and he does need to get to the bottom of this – would be to talk it through with Mikaze himself. But then he’d have to explain why the reviews bother him so much and, even if he’d fully unpacked his feelings around it, he doesn’t think he wants to.

Well, there are always other options. And Camus is, if nothing else, a man of resources.

“I’m going out,” he says.

Kotobuki tips his head over the back of the couch, and watches him as he leaves. His expression is unreadable, and not just because it’s upside-down. “Have fun!”

*

Camus tells his chauffeur to just… drive. It’s a familiar directive, one he issues when he doesn’t want to be at home, but doesn’t have a particular destination in mind either. This time, though, he knows where he wants to go; he just needs to clear it first. 

The man who directs most of Shining Theatre’s shows, a personal favourite of Shining Saotome’s, is a believer in recording each and every one of their rehearsals. He maintains it’s important to be able to watch yourself perform, in order to have a baseline for improvement; after all, an actor is their own worst critic. It’s a little strange to Camus, always a traditionalist at heart, but such a thing does have its uses. He puts up a screen between him and the driver with the press of a button, and makes the call.

The director answers after four rings. “What’s up?”

“I’d like the footage of last night’s show.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s on tape, but… hang on.” There’s a shuffling sound on the other end. “It’s a little late to make any major changes to your performance. And I don’t think you need to, anyway. Have you seen the reviews yet? They’re all glowing.”

It’s _because_ he’s seen the reviews that he wants the footage, but he can hardly admit that. “I need that recording,” he grinds out, dangerously close to slipping out of character. Then he centres himself, backtracks. “Please.”

There’s a strange, loaded silence on the other end. Camus doesn’t actually think the director will deny him – he has no real reason to – but it doesn’t bode well nonetheless.

“I still don’t think you have anything to worry about,” he says at last, “but alright. I’m at the theatre today, just checking a couple of things, so meet me here in an hour?”

Camus thanks him, then hangs up.

When they meet, the director sends him home with not one, but three recordings, hurriedly burnt to DVD: one each tailored for Camus and Mikaze, as well as the raw footage from a camera which takes in the entire stage, intended for Quartet Night as a whole. Ensconced in his car once again, he picks out the disc labelled _CAMUS CAM_ , and feeds it into the limousine’s DVD player. As someone who prefers books to films, it’s not a feature he uses often, but it doesn’t take too much fiddling to set up.

 _Trois_ runs for around three hours, excluding the intermission, and the bulk of those scenes feature Athos, Porthos and Aramis together. Camus’s personal tape is about two hours and fifteen minutes long; ignoring the parts where he’s onstage and Mikaze isn’t, as well as the ensemble songs which open and close each half, he estimates he can shave off another thirty minutes.

“Take me on a two-hour route,” he orders his chauffeur. “Wherever you’d like.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t need anywhere near that long. He skips through his first solo scene, right to the part where the three musketeers meet for the first time. Athos, as a character, is defined by his honour and adherence to his own chivalrous code, so the Camus onscreen plays him with a mixture of wariness, confidence, and unflinching self-righteousness. He’s meant to find Porthos too zealous, and his first exchange with Kurusu reflects that; it’s full of barely-contained irritation and palpable dislike. Kurusu’s a very physical actor, and even though he’s hardly in frame, it’s easy to imagine the way he arches up, like he’s spoiling for a fight. 

His initial conversation with Mikaze, though, is very different. They exchange their lines whip-quick, trading barbs as easily as they might exchange blows in a duel. Both characters are deeply stubborn and not the type to back down, so the argument draws on and on as Porthos hovers awkwardly. They remain at a distance from each other, but the tension between their characters seems to reduce the space to almost zero. During rehearsals, Camus had focused on delivering his lines with an icy, noble entitlement; watched back with the reviews in mind, though, there’s an undercurrent of challenge in his tone, as if he’s daring Aramis to rise to his level. As if he thinks Aramis might be capable of it, could even prove an entertaining rival. Their words are spoken with hostility, but Camus knows what the look in his eyes means: he’s having fun. Because Mikaze _had_ been fun to argue with, matching his intensity and going all-in on the disagreement. For all Mikaze’s flaws as a person, at least he commits to his roles.

On a whim, he decides to cheat, and swaps his disc for Mikaze’s. He jumps ahead to the same section, and rewatches it from a different perspective. He mouths along to his lines, perfectly in sync, not taking his eyes off the screen for even a second. This close, the complicated emotions that ripple across his co-star’s face are obvious: his Aramis has the pious detachment the role demands, but Mikaze’s natural curiosity keeps bleeding through. The effect is of a man at once disillusioned by the world around him – and yet, for all its sins, wanting to believe in it as well. Mikaze has always been strangely good at performing nuance, for a man incapable of feeling much of it.

The handouts they’d been given to prepare for the role stated that Aramis initially finds Athos boring, too rigid to be worth his time. Mikaze delivers his lines crisply, almost contemptuously, but there’s an intrigue in his eyes which belies it. Almost as if he wants Athos to prove him wrong – or, no, is it _Camus_ he’s evaluating?

It’s too large a question to tackle all at once. Camus skips ahead to the climactic scene of the first half, in which Athos, Porthos and Aramis decide to put their differences aside and work together for the sake of their cause.

“— common enemy,” he hears Athos saying. Mikaze is looking down, frown cast into shadow by his hat. “Richelieu is too large a threat, and we can’t afford to divide our strength this way.”

“I don’t know,” says Porthos, from somewhere offscreen. “We may fight for the same cause, but we’re so different.”

“I think,” Aramis says quietly, “I think that –” and, _there_. He pauses the recording just as Mikaze glances up and to the right, at the place where Camus knows he’d be standing.

One of Mikaze’s greatest strengths as an actor is, paradoxically, the fact that sometimes he stops acting. Camus has spoken to him about his methods before, since they tend to take a similar approach: they’re both the analytical type, figuring out the effect a role needs to produce and working in reverse to engineer that. The difference between them is that emotions are still so new to Mikaze that every now and then, without knowing it, he shows something real. 

The trust in Mikaze’s face in this shot is so open, so _honest_ , that he can’t look at it any longer. Camus ejects the disc, shuts the DVD player off, and tells the driver to take him home.

His thoughts are restless, and he honestly doesn’t know how to fix it. This exercise has only served to prove the reviewers right: there’s definitely something strange in his performance he can’t nail down, a _je ne sais quois_ that elevates it from his usual. And that, whatever it is, Mikaze’s body language suggests he’s picking up on it – no, actively feeding back into it.

Camus massages his temples, where a headache’s beginning to brew. He should be happy about this, because there’s no doubting that their onstage dynamic really is that good, but he’s largely just confused. And, worst of all, he has the most ominous feeling his problems are only getting started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i always kinda side-eye authors a bit when they're like "i have no idea where this is going!" but, screw it: i have no idea where this is going, but also i deserve weird slowburn for my otp and nobody else is gonna do it. maybe i'll edit this later? maybe i won't? Who Knows


	2. Chapter 2

When Camus gets back, Kurusu is waiting outside his building. Not for him: he’s dressed to exercise, hatless for once, bouncing from one sneakered foot to the other to keep himself warm. Probably meeting Kurosaki, because they’ve been going off to train together lately. And although it’s not his business what either of them does, it would really be in his best interests if they’d hurry up and leave.

Camus has his driver make a slow loop around the block, in the hopes that maybe Kurusu will be gone by the time they arrive back at the apartment. It isn’t like him to be so evasive, but the fact is that Kurusu is probably going to be his best source on the Mikaze problem, and he isn’t sure he wants to have that conversation. But, when they turn the final corner and there’s still a familiar blond head visible down the street, he resigns himself to his fate.

If Camus had to rank the members of Starish from most to least tolerable, Kurusu would likely place somewhere around the middle. He doesn’t have the quiet professionalism of Ichinose or Hijirikawa, but he also isn’t anywhere near as grating as Jinguji or Aijima at their worst. He’s appreciably straightforward, self-motivated, and has been nothing but diligent in his approach to _Trois_. And, looking at the way his co-star’s expression wavers slightly as he steps out of his limousine, Camus is reminded that Kurusu is also one of the weakest liars he’s ever met.

“Hi,” Kurusu says, tone friendly but brittle.

“Good morning.”

Leaving would be needlessly rude, but he also doesn’t particularly want to stay. So a silence opens up between them, and it’s one Camus isn’t particularly inclined to break. The issue is, he doesn’t actually have anything to say to Kurusu – or anyone – outside of work. Small talk chafes him, and he doesn’t care to have a heart-to-heart either; it’s obvious something’s bothering the other idol, but the last thing Camus wants to do is play the role of his confidant. Starish can take care of themselves.

Kurusu really is transparent, though. He keeps opening his mouth, hesitating, and then closing it again, as if he wants to speak but the words are sticking in his throat. The action is familiar from the earliest days of their relationship, when they hadn’t known each other long enough for Kurusu’s natural brashness to overwhelm his unfamiliarity and nerves. Still, though, it’s been a long time since he’s seen Kurusu so tongue-tied, let alone been the cause of it, and it’s too pathetic to watch. After the man tries and fails to talk for the fifth time in the space of a minute, Camus decides he has to step in.

“If you want to say something,” he says, “hurry and say it. You look like a fish.”

“Yeah, uh.” Kurusu shifts uncomfortably, caught out. “I actually wanted to ask a question. Have you –”

The building’s glass doors slide open, releasing a blast of warm air from the foyer along with Kurosaki. His eyes sweep over the pair in front of him, familiar scowl settling onto his face, and Camus has genuinely never been more pleased to see him.

“Camus.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, walking the line between civil and frosty, “I was just leaving.”

“Hey, Ranmaru.” Kurusu looks like he’s eaten something unpleasant, but he also knows better than to push the issue with Kurosaki around. “I might… message you later, then, Camus?”

“You can try.”

Kurosaki’s eyes narrow. “Would it kill you to not be an ass?”

All of Camus’s gratitude for his sudden appearance vanishes at once; his bandmate tends to have that effect on him. It’s always one step forward, two steps back with Kurosaki. “Would it kill you to not intrude?”

“O- _kay_ ,” Kurusu cuts in, positioning himself between them, “we should probably get going. See you.”

Kurusu sets off at a jog, and Kurosaki glares at him for a moment longer before following. It’s an expected hostility, though, and a meaningless one. At least he can rely on that to be constant.

Camus heads into the building, and rides the elevator to his floor in an unusually pensive mood. He lets himself into their apartment, as quietly as possible, and is pleased to find nobody there. Of course Kurosaki’s out, and should be for at least a couple of hours; Kotobuki could be anywhere on the planet, although Camus isn’t invested in the particulars; and Mikaze’s probably in his room, doing whatever it is he does. He dumps the DVD cases with Mikaze’s performance and the full-stage view on the kitchen counter, then takes his own copy and considers his next move. He doesn’t think he has the energy to actually watch it at the moment, but that’s no reason to leave it lying around.

He’d been hoping to read earlier, but his car ride had been full of interruptions. Irksome, since he’d been looking forward to it, but he has more than enough time to make up for that now. His current title is a classic, as his literary diet usually is, but he’d deliberately selected something more modern this time; the week had been shaping up to be exhausting, even before… this _episode_ , for lack of a better term, had struck. Thank goodness for readable language.

There’s nothing stopping him from reading in the lounge, but just because it’s empty now is no guarantee it’ll remain that way. (And, for that matter, there’s no guarantee he’ll remain unbothered even if he visibly has a book open. Honestly.) So instead he settles himself in the armchair in the corner of his room, flicks on his lamp, and turns to his most recent place.

Around a hundred pages in – an hour and a half? more than that? – there’s a knock on his door. Since it isn’t immediately followed by Kotobuki yelling a cheerful hello, and since Kurosaki would probably rather eat glass than speak to him, there’s only one person it could be. He stands and rolls his shoulders to work out the knots, then answers it.

Mikaze’s dressed down, in a cardigan over jeans, hands clasped around the DVD case with his name on it. His hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, and Camus is momentarily blindsided by seeing so much of his face.

“The director gave me the wrong recording,” he says without preamble, holding the case up. When he pops it open, though, the disc inside reads _CAMUS CAM_. “We need to trade.”

Camus manages to stifle his surprise, barely. He knows for a fact the DVDs had been in the correct cases when he’d left the theatre, which means he must have mixed them up himself, on the ride home. But it’s still difficult to believe he’d make such an uncharacteristic mistake. Granted, it’s a minor slipup, and completely harmless in the scheme of things; Mikaze seems to genuinely believe it was the director’s fault. But still, has he really been thrown off so badly by this whole affair?

Mikaze blinks at him, and Camus realises he’s been quiet for much too long. “One moment,” he says, ducking back into his room. When he finds and opens the case on his desk, _AI CAM_ stares up at him in the director’s blocky handwriting.

Well.

Mikaze exchanges the discs with minimal fuss, which Camus expects. But he also lingers a little, which Camus doesn’t. It’s quiet between them, because it always is; if there’s a single one of his housemates he can trust to appreciate the value of silence, it’s Mikaze. 

And yet – he doesn’t think he’s imagining how strangely loaded the atmosphere feels. Has Mikaze read the reviews? Probably, if Kotobuki’s had anything to say about it; the question is whether or not he’s had the opportunity to. And then, assuming Mikaze has – does Mikaze know that he knows? Because he certainly doesn’t know if Mikaze knows that he knows, and at this point, he’s coming dangerously close to overthinking it. He’s going to have some very strong words for Kotobuki later.

“You seem off,” Mikaze says. “Are you sick, or distracted?”

“Neither.” He’s probably told more lies in the last few hours than the last year, and they sit uncomfortably behind his teeth. So he adjusts slightly, goes for the half-truth. “I was reading something when you knocked. It always takes time for me to surface.”

“Was it interesting? I’m looking for recommendations.”

“No,” he says, “it wasn’t anything you’d like.”

They lapse back into silence, and this time it’s obviously a strange one. As if Camus would even be able to guess at his taste in literature, when, even now, he has no idea who Mikaze is outside of Quartet Night. (But then again, part of him comments, maybe he’s being too generous; there’s no guarantee Mikaze knows, either.)

“I’d like to do a readthrough of some scenes from _Trois_ later,” he says, before he can spiral too far down that line of thinking. “If you’re willing.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity.”

Mikaze looks at him for a long moment, and Camus makes himself stay calm. It’s possible he’s tipped his hand too far, but it’s a better option than talking about the reviews directly. Plus, this way he’ll be able to recreate their onstage dynamic in a low-stakes setting, and feel it out for himself.

“I’m playing a game with Ren at nine,” he says at last. “So it has to be before that.”

“All right.”

“He told me to ask if you wanted to join us.”

“He’s pushing his luck.”

“He said, _Baron’s probably bored out of his skull right now, and it’d be good for him to do something social_. I told him you wouldn’t be interested, and even if you were, your computer wouldn’t be able to run it anyway.”

The fact that Jinguji’s making these kinds of assumptions is bad enough. But worse is the fact a pattern’s started to emerge: Jinguji’s more likely to be acting in good faith than Kotobuki, but either way, multiple of his co-workers have now tried to bring him into closer proximity with Mikaze. He does not, even remotely, trust this offer. “And what did he say to that.”

“He reminded me I have an old laptop I could lend you.”

“He doesn’t know when to give up.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Mikaze tucks his copy of _Trois_ to his chest, takes a step back. “Then let’s meet after dinner. Is an hour enough?”

“More than.”

“Right.” Another step. “Goodbye.”

After he leaves, Camus tries to immerse himself in his book again. He makes it five slow, fruitless pages in before conceding his appetite for reading is completely gone, and not to be retrieved. He’s too unsettled to concentrate, which is frustrating, because there’s no clear reason for it – well, there’s an obvious reason, but it isn’t a satisfying or sensible one. His conversation with Mikaze wasn’t even ominous, or strange, or anything other than businesslike. They’ve been in each other’s orbit long enough to have had worse exchanges, some of which were even recent. It’s just part and parcel of working together, particularly with catalysts like Kotobuki and Kurosaki in the mix, and it never turns out to be all that serious. For instance, there had been that incident early in rehearsals for _Trois_ , where – 

Camus is saved from his thoughts by the sound of his phone going off. He checks it, strangely pleased for the distraction, and finds a raft of messages: one new, the rest from an hour or two ago.

[Jinguji]: baronnnnnnnn

He decides to ignore that one – for now, possibly forever – and turns instead to the first of the older messages. It’s more important than Jinguji nagging him, although it pans out that, when he opens it, he actually wants to deal with it less.

[Kurusu]: Hey, can I talk to you before the show tomorrow? I don’t mind when or where, I just want to finish our conversation.

And, timestamped a few minutes later, a series of texts:

[Kurosaki]: syo wasn’t himself all day  
[Kurosaki]: fix your shit  
[Kurosaki]: asap

This display of mother-henning would be amusing, if it didn’t also speak to the seriousness of the situation. Kurosaki wouldn’t have intervened unless his concern about Kurusu outweighed his raw disdain for Camus and, while Camus has absolutely no desire to acknowledge anything positive about his bandmate, he can begrudgingly appreciate what this lapse in hostilities would have cost. So he sighs through his teeth, and types an answer to Kurusu.

>Tea, then. I’ll pick you up at 3.

The response comes almost immediately.

[Kurusu]: Cool.

From where he’s standing, he’d have to beg to differ. He still has no desire to go through with this, no energy to deal with someone else’s issues and, worst of all, no plan of attack. And he badly needs to formulate one, because otherwise he’s liable to leave himself exposed; he’s definitely been off his game enough today that he doesn’t trust himself not to. Kurusu’s impulsive and predictable, but he isn’t stupid, and he’s more than perceptive enough to pick up on the emotional turmoil of others. As if Camus doesn’t have to be wary enough about this whole business.

_Cool_ , indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm honestly blown away that people are actually here for this? i'm so grateful to everyone who read and kudos'd and commented, and double-grateful to the friends who saw me describe this as "the seinfeld of aicamus fics" and showed up anyway. y'all are great. anyway, chapters will probably stay around this length (or get a bit longer), but i definitely won't keep updating this fast -- school just started, so i really can't promise a consistent schedule or anything. sorry and thanks in advance for your patience.


	3. Chapter 3

Camus slinks out of his room an hour later, having tried and failed to meaningfully burn any more time, and is immediately greeted by the strains of _Trois_ drifting from the lounge. Since Mikaze’s the type to prefer watching things on his laptop, that means he’s looking at even odds between Kotobuki and Kurosaki, or maybe even both at once. And yet: right now, he needs to get a glass of water from the kitchen more than he needs to avoid other people. He’ll just have to make it the quickest incursion possible.

It ends up being Kotobuki, script in one hand and remote in the other, and he pauses the recording when Camus walks in. Onscreen, Athos, Porthos and Aramis are facing down Richelieu; even with the camera zoomed so far out, Hijirikawa oozes a palpable menace. He really had been an excellent choice to play the villain.

“Carry on,” Camus says. It’s a little odd that Kotobuki’s so engrossed in a scene irrelevant to his character, but he’s also long since given up on trying to make sense of his bandmates. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“No, I needed to tell you something anyway.” Kotobuki turns his head so he can make eye contact over the back of the couch. “Ai-ai asked me to help out with rehearsing later. Since Syotan’s not here, and you don’t have a Porthos.”

Camus stills, hand poised halfway to opening one of the kitchen drawers. “Absolutely not.”

“Hmmmm, but you can’t run a three-person scene very well with only two people. Are you planning to trade me for Ran-ran?”

“Kurosaki isn’t invited,” he grinds out. “And neither are you.”

“You know, if you wanted to be alone with Ai-ai, you could’ve said so.”

The truly unfortunate thing about Kotobuki is that, although he seldom shows it, he isn’t actually an idiot. And when his schemes fire, they _fire_. Which means Camus is left with the options of ignoring it (weak), denying it (weaker), or giving him a straight answer (utterly unthinkable). Or turning the questions back on his interrogator.

“What are you planning?”

“I’m not planning anything.”

“You told me to read those reviews.”

“Out of the goodness of my heart, Myu. I thought you’d appreciate the praise.”

“Stop messing around.”

“If I did, I don’t think you’d want to hear it.” Kotobuki sounds as chipper as ever, but when he shifts to look more fully at Camus, his eyes aren’t smiling.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

Camus decides to act on the lull in conversation, and busies himself with doing what he came here to do: he retrieves a glass, fills it with water from the dispenser in the fridge, and downs most of it in one. Kotobuki, though, has never once met a silence he didn’t immediately steamroll, and he doesn’t seem to want to now.

“How many years have we been working together now?” 

“I don’t know,” Camus says, as if he hasn’t been counting. He refills his cup, eyes fixed on the way his fingers curl around the glass.

“It’s been a long time, and you haven’t really changed.”

He turns, walks around the kitchen counter, sets his drink on the marble. Usually he’d use a coaster, but he doesn’t plan to be here long enough to bother. “I changed after we moved in together.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure you did? I know you take our work more seriously, and you don’t fight as much with Ran-ran – with _Ranmaru_ , and you’ve only gotten better at your solo jobs. But you’re still so… I don’t know, so cold.”

“What do you expect from me? I have no intention to become close with anyone, especially if it means abandoning who I am.”

“That isn’t what I meant. Look, I’ll put it like this: I know you don’t want to be friends. I know you couldn’t care less about me, so long as I’m doing my part for Quartet Night. Sometimes I think you’d prefer we never even met, you know, and that Shining had assigned you to another unit. But we did meet, and we work together, and we live together now, so… I’m saying this as someone who’s invested in you, even if you’re not invested in me.” Kotobuki fixes him with serious eyes. “You’re stagnating.”

That’s a speech and a half, packed with more undiluted honesty than he’s heard in months, and he suspects there’s still a whole host of implications he’s missing. He decides to start at the end, with the one claim he knows he can absolutely refute. “Maintaining perfection isn’t _stagnating_.”

“But you improved during your last performance. That has to mean something, right?”

“Perfection is a spectrum.”

“Camus,” says Kotobuki, “that doesn’t actually make sense.”

“Sometimes you reach perfection, and sometimes you exceed it. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“That sounds like an excuse.”

“And what is it supposed to be excusing.”

“The fact you improved, and you don’t know why.”

“If you’re suggesting it was some intangible _chemistry_ –“ 

“Oh, I’m not making suggestions. The point is that it happened, because something changed, and you hadn’t planned for that.” Kotobuki rests his arms on the back of the couch, and props his head on his crossed hands. “If I see a way for someone close to me to start growing, of course I’m going to move them towards it.”

“You aren’t my therapist. You aren’t – you aren’t anything to me, beyond a co-worker.”

“Well, whatever. I just think you should think about it.” He turns back to the television. “Did you want to watch the ending together?”

Camus picks up his glass. “No.”

On his way out he passes Kurosaki, leaning against the corridor wall. And, graceless as he is, he doesn’t even have the dignity to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping. But Camus’s patience is non-existent at the best of times; now, when he’s frustrated by Kotobuki’s meddling and quietly working himself into a frenzy over meeting with Mikaze later and not at all prepared for tea with Kurusu tomorrow, it’s hanging by a thread. Frankly, he has neither the self-control nor the desire to stop himself from picking a fight.

“What.”

Kurosaki’s eyes narrow into slits. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“That’s uncharacteristic.”

“Don’t take your problems with others out on me, Camus.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I have plenty of problems with you too.”

Kurosaki makes an irritated noise, and stalks past. “Don’t I know it.”

Strangely, Camus doesn’t feel much better for needling him. Their fights used to be more satisfying, but recently they’re as likely to leave him bored or exhausted. It probably doesn’t mean anything – and it certainly doesn’t mean his tolerance for Kurosaki has improved, because it hasn’t – but still. It bothers him.

Kotobuki, of course, would say it means he hates change. Camus, on the other hand, would say it’s a good time to barricade himself in his room again.

*

Mikaze’s room is clean and sparse, and for all the time he spends in here, it still feels barely lived-in. Camus lets himself in after knocking, script tucked under his arm more as a precaution than anything; he knows his own lines, of course, and can trust Mikaze to know his, but he’s not sure either of them can reliably rattle off all Kurusu’s as well.

His host is parked at his desk, in front of a laptop, and hardly spares him a glance as he picks his way through. “You can sit down, if you want.”

Camus does not want. He sets his script on the nearest flat surface he can find, and props himself against a wall instead. “Are we waiting for anyone?”

“No,” he says. “Reiji offered to be Porthos, but then he messaged me to say he couldn’t make it. Something came up.”

Camus will eat his entire Athos hat if that’s true. Just once, he’d like to have an interaction with Kotobuki without one of his schemes running in the background. _You know, if you wanted to be alone with Ai-ai..._

“He told me you’d made the request.”

“I didn’t.”

“Really. I don’t know what motivates him.”

Mikaze’s eyes flicker up from his laptop, flat and inscrutable as ever. That’s it; implicit as it was, the spectre of the reviews – of last night’s performance – has been raised. His lips purse slightly, as if he wants to pursue the subject; strangely, uncharacteristically, he lets it drop. “I need to update some programs before I play with Ren later,” he says instead, looking back at the screen. “I’ll be one minute.”

Camus drifts over to the bookshelf, because it’s the only part of this room he can trust to distract him, and is strangely disappointed when it’s mostly empty. Mikaze mostly reads on a tablet – he brings it out sometimes, in the lounge or on the way to jobs or backstage at rehearsals – so the few physical books he owns are all old, out-of-print things. And not even impressively old, either; when Camus pulls one of them out slightly to look, it turns out to be some paperback sci-fi novel. He doesn’t mean to grimace, but it sort of slips out anyway. It’s strange, considering he has absolutely zero investment in any of his bandmates, but he finds himself almost disappointed that Mikaze’s taste runs so… unliterary.

“Did you want to borrow that?”

Camus looks at the cover again. He has capital-o Opinions about genre fiction, of which he suspects his host shares very, very few. He decides to offer the basic courtesy of not airing them, but mostly because it seems like poor timing. “No.”

“Suit yourself.” Mikaze stands, then, and he replaces the book. “I’ve queued the downloads. Were there any particular sections you wanted to run?” 

“The climactic ones. The last scene of the first act, and the fourteenth scene of the second.”

“What do we do about Porthos?”

“We could put on the recording.”

“No,” says Mikaze, “I want to do it organically.”

“Then we’ll alternate, based on who he’s addressing.”

“Fine. The first scene starts with me, then.” His body language shifts, and in that moment he becomes someone else – becomes Aramis. He carries himself a little more warily, and his gaze has shuttered off to something more cautious. “If things go on this way, we won’t stand a chance…”

The reading starts disastrously, and only gets worse from there. Which is to say: technically, by anyone else’s standards, it’s perfect. Camus isn’t such a rank amateur that an emotion or two, messy as they might be, would throw him off his game. But there’s obviously something missing, although he can’t quite put his finger on what.

Mikaze stops them once they’re most of the way through, a strange tension in his stance. “Camus, this isn’t the performance you gave last night.”

Of course they’ve been working together long enough – and closely enough – for it to be noticeable, but he baulks a little nevertheless. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“First you ask to rehearse, and then you give a flat reading? It’s obvious why you came here. You wanted to attempt reproduction.”

Camus, well-bred aristocrat that he is, definitely does not choke. “ _What?_ ”

“Reproducing the conditions of our last performance.” He blinks. “Did you think I meant –”

“I absolutely did not,” he says, a little more harshly than he would like, and turns to look at the bookshelf. Even contemplating the unsightly array of science fiction titles there is preferable to eye contact. “I assume Kotobuki made you read the reviews as well, then?” 

“Of course he did. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I thought I should let you approach me.”

“Well, you have me. What did you want to say?”

“The nuance they praised in your performance. You didn’t include that on purpose, did you.”

“No.” It humiliates him to hear it said; to admit, even to an audience of two, that his perfect control had slipped. He shifts his weight a little, fixes his eyes on a slim red paperback three shelves down. “I approached this role as I do all my others. I don’t know what apparent vulnerability made its way in, but –”

“It happened to me as well, and I don’t understand what caused that. I’m the same as you, Camus; I reach perfection without passion. So then, why…?”

“I don’t know.” The words are heavy on his tongue. “And these, these supposed _sparks_ between us?”

“Also unaccounted for.” He senses, more than sees, the sharpening of Mikaze’s gaze. “Anyway, I thought we could make an alliance.”

“An... alliance?”

“Last night brought out something new in me, and I don’t know how to make sense of it. I suspected the same might have happened to you and, since I was right, I thought we could work together to solve it.”

There’s one book, on the lowest shelf of Mikaze’s bookcase, that doesn’t fit in with the others. It’s old as well, but it’s a finely-bound hardback, and it doesn’t have a name printed on the spine. He picks it up, flips to the title page, and has to stop himself from scoffing: it’s Dumas, of course. _The Three Musketeers_.

“It seemed preferable to have a hard copy,” Mikaze says, eyes still on him. “You must have read it, too.”

“ _The Count of Monte Cristo_ is better.”

“I don’t know much about it.”

“It’s a novel about grand passions. You’d find it interesting.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

Camus sets the book back in place, but can’t quite bring himself to face his bandmate. “This alliance. What do you see it involving?”

“I’m not sure yet. But problems are easier to solve when more people are working on them.”

“You consider it a problem?”

“In the same way a math question is a problem. A puzzle, not an issue.”

He suspects it might indeed be an issue, especially if he can’t resolve his feelings – well, resolve them _enough_ – before the show tomorrow night. It’s true that the audience might not notice his newfound ambivalence, but that isn’t comforting. It was certainly noticeable enough to Mikaze, and that means Kotobuki and Kurosaki have probably sensed it as well, and he still doesn’t know what Kurusu knows, either. He’s already contemplating a headache and a half.

The real snag is that he doesn’t particularly like the idea of teaming up. Banding together is for those who can’t handle themselves, and the strength of Quartet Night, as a unit, is that they’re all strong enough to stand on their own. In this case, though, he might be able to convince himself this alliance isn’t a sign of weakness. Not if he’s perfectly capable of solving this by himself – which he is, obviously. It’s just that this particular mystery might be more approachable if he has Mikaze willing to cooperate. And, well, if it’s for the sake of chasing greater heights as a performer...

Camus says, “I accept,” and then, “for now.”

“I don’t expect this to be permanent. Between us, we should be able to deal with this in a few days.” He steps a little closer. “Did you want to shake on it?”

Since the worst seems to be over, Camus finally tears himself away from the bookshelf. His bandmate’s face and stance still betray – nothing. “Not for an informal agreement.”

“In that case, I think that’s all.”

“I’ll leave, then. There are things I’d like to take care of tonight.”

“Wait,” Mikaze says abruptly, and Camus, already halfway across the room, turns sharply. The cardigan he’s wearing makes his eyes seem bluer than usual, open ocean rather than sea foam. “ _The Count of Monte Cristo_. Do you have a copy?”

He does, in fact. But while he’d usually be loath to lend one of his possessions to anyone, Mikaze seems like someone who’d take good care of it. And, well, it’s a travesty for anyone not to have read that book. Which means he’s simply correcting a mistake. “I can bring it by tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Camus echoes, and then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good luck to everyone scouting for white day camus! hopefully this chapter brings you good luck. he, uh, hasn't seen fit to come home on my account yet, but i'll (extremely count of monte cristo voice) wait and hope


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (pretty brief) spoilers for the end of s4 in this one, i guess. also it's hella unedited and i may or may not ever get to fixing that

“Table for two?”

Camus puts on his brightest smile. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

The waiter, dressed almost like a butler in vest and tie, leads them to his usual table: Camus keeps pace, but Kurusu lags behind a little. His companion looks wildly out of place here, hatless and overexposed again, and no doubt he’s still trying to take it all in.

Camus’s second favourite establishment at which to have tea – it’d be no good to give away _all_ his secrets – is at a Western-style mansion, owned by an elderly foreigner, who’s converted part of the bottom floor into a parlour of sorts. In spring and summer, the gardens are open, and guests can purchase tea in flasks and head into the grounds. But it rained this morning, and the grass is still damp, so he had suggested they settle in the main room instead.

“I don’t drink a lot of tea,” Kurusu admits, once they’re seated. Camus likes this particular spot because it’s right by a window, offering the best view of the gardens, but his companion seems too focused on the menu to notice. “Which ones are good here?”

Camus’s mask has been firmly in place ever since they arrived, and he can’t let it slip now. Still, that doesn’t actually mean he has to be nice, especially when he’d rather get to the point of this engagement instead of enduring the pleasantries. “That depends what you enjoy.”

“Uh, something I can have with milk?”

“One of the black teas, then.”

“I dunno, though. It seems like kind of a waste to go to a place like this, and then get something I could find anywhere?”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“What do you normally get?”

“Their selection of fruit teas is excellent. Particularly the ones with berries.”

Kurusu trails a finger along his menu, making his way down to that section. Camus, of course, knows exactly what he’ll be ordering. The raspberry here is his favourite, enough to win over even a black-tea advocate as strident as himself. It’s sweet, while retaining just enough of the fruit’s natural acidity, and yet – it still pairs perfectly with sugar, neither too overwhelming nor too overwhelmed. Really, there’s no point in coming here and ordering anything else. He rotates between tea parlours often, never dining at the same place two times out of ten, and it’s been a long time since he was here last. Yes, the raspberry will suit him perfectly.

“I’ll have the raspberry,” Kurusu tells the waiter, once he’s signalled the man over. “And you, Camus?”

Well, he can’t exactly order it _now_. “The mango, please. And a slice of the vanilla cake.”

The waiter leaves. Camus watches him go, all formality, and tries – although not especially hard – to tamp down his irritation.

“So,” says Kurusu, suddenly self-conscious, “I should probably get to the point.”

“It would be better to wait. I come here because the service is fast, and they’ll likely interrupt us.”

“Right. Well, uh, how’ve you been, then?” 

“I don’t want to make small talk with you,” Camus says pleasantly, and smiles.

Kurusu frowns. “If I can’t talk about the issue, and I can’t talk about minor things, what do you want me to say?”

“Preferably nothing.”

The other idol takes the hint, this time, and turns to look out the window. The afternoon sun peels the shadows from his face, strikes high off his cheekbones, spins his hair a shimmering blond. And when he finally glances back at Camus, a minute or an hour later, his eyes are clear and blue.

“You know,” he says, “it’s been years, and I still can’t tell if Cecil thinks highly of you or not.”

“I should hope he does.”

“As a performer, yeah. But as a person? He told us a ton of horror stories about being roommates, you know.”

“I don’t need to be respected for my personality. My ability speaks for itself.”

“I’m… not sure it works like that.”

“For instance,” Camus continues, “no matter what you think of me, you still set up this arrangement. That proves my point.”

“But you don’t even know why.”

“I can guess.”

It’s only half a lie. Kurusu isn’t anything like Kotobuki; there’s no chance he’s working on some social Rube Goldberg machine intended to goad Camus into personal growth. But, at the same time – surely, coming from his co-star, it has to be about _Trois_. Everything seems to lead back to that lately.

“I’d believe it. People always tell me I’m too easy to read.”

The waiter returns, bringing one item at a time. By the time he’s set down the pot of Camus’s mango tea, the pot of Kurusu’s raspberry tea, the plate with Camus’s slice of vanilla cake, the sugar bowl, and cutlery and a teacup for each of them, Kurusu seems to have been stunned into silence.

“Did you gentlemen wish me to serve you?” the waiter asks. When Camus nods, he pours out a cup for each of them, then vanishes quiet as a whisper.

Camus samples his tea, and has to try not to wince. It’s so _bitter_ , which isn’t something he usually associates with mango; perhaps he should have swallowed his pride and committed to the raspberry. Still, it can be doctored, and he reaches for the sugar bowl.

“Hey,” Kurusu says, horror written across his face, “tell me you aren’t –”

But Camus has already taken the tongs in hand, and he drowns out the inconvenient question by dropping three cubes in at once. That should be a decent ballpark for his first round, especially considering the size of the crockery. Across the table, Kurusu curls his hands around his teacup, casts him a doubtful look. Camus ignores him, and stirs. His teaspoon circles noiselessly; he’s well-mannered and well-practiced enough not to clink it against the china as he goes. 

“Uh – isn’t that sweet enough as is?”

“It has a slightly sour aftertaste.”

“Only slightly, huh.”

He tries his drink again. Four cubes seems to have been the right amount, although he wouldn’t turn down a fifth. Still, better to play it safe for now, and make sure he has enough sugar to last the rest of the pot. “Weren’t you going to say something important?”

“Right,” says Kurusu, gaze sharpening, “yeah. So, getting to the point, did you see any of the reviews for _Trois_?”

“If this is about Mikaze –”

He pulls himself up short, frustration and confusion warring on his face. “What? No. Why would it be about Ai?”

Camus curses himself twice over for jumping to conclusions. He takes the easiest way out: a half-truth. “You wouldn’t be the first to ask.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not like I don’t have questions, but I want to talk about something else. That means you’ve read them, though, right?” 

“I have.”

The other idol fiddles with the handle of his teacup, suddenly very interested in the depths of his drink. “They all said basically the same thing. That you and Ai were the stars, and I was kind of just… there.”

Ah. This is looking to be less complex than he’d feared, then; babysitting Kurusu still isn’t his idea of a good time, but at least he’ll be able to maintain a reasonable distance. “And so?”

“And so, can I be honest?”

“You may as well.” 

“I’ve been worried about getting typecast, so I wanted to use _Trois_ to prove I have range. Porthos seemed like he’d have more nuance than my usual, and I wanted to lean into it and give this production my all. Plus, I thought I could finally stand on the same level as Quartet Night, but – well.” He laughs, short and harsh, and it sounds nothing like him. “You saw what the critics thought.”

“You won the right to open for the Triple S,” says Camus, and ignores the part of him that, months later, still smarts about it. “What more evidence do you need about your calibre as a performer.”

“Starish… we’re stronger together than we are alone. And I…”

“Don’t toe around your point.”

“There’s something I wanted to ask you.” Kurusu picks his head up, and looks him in the eye. “You don’t – I wasn’t dead weight, was I?”

Camus pours himself another cup of tea. He can sense, more than see, his companion’s restlessness as he waits for the answer, but there’s nothing wrong with letting him steep. There’s enough sugar residue left in his teacup that he doesn’t need to add any more, just stirs. Then he sets his teaspoon down, and approaches the part of the issue which bothers him.

“Why do you want to hear it from me?”

“We were onstage together the most. And I thought you’d give it to me straight.”

“That’s also true of Mikaze.”

“Yeah, but I’ve already relied on Ai so much. I can’t keep doing that forever.”

“I don’t see how relying on me is better.”

“I mean, maybe it isn’t. But like I said, I don’t think you’d say anything you didn’t mean.”

His tea, when he sips at it, isn’t quite sweet enough. He drops in another cube of sugar, deliberates, adds a second. Stirs again.

“Have you ever worked with a truly awful performer?”

Kurusu opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Yeah.”

“Then you should know that the ones who are dead weight,” Camus says, “are the ones who don’t realise it. I would have said something during rehearsals if you were lagging behind. Or Mikaze would have, or Kurosaki. None of us would have coddled you.”

“I mean, I guess, but –”

“And don’t bother worrying about typecasting. Think of it this way: suppose I had been cast as Porthos, and you as Athos. We may be playing to type as we are now, but _Trois_ would have been weaker otherwise.”

Kurusu snorts. “I can’t imagine you playing any kind of high-energy character.”

“I would have made an excellent Porthos,” Camus says, mostly because he doesn’t want to concede the point, “but you could no more have played Mikaze’s role than he could have played yours.”

“So you think I’m being ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

“I mean, I need time to process, but I guess I am.” He fiddles with one of his hairpins. “Thanks.”

“Don’t bother being grateful. You remaining uncertain would only have brought down the production.”

“Even if this is just business, I owe you for it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“No, really,” he insists, “I owe you. So, if there’s anything I can do, uh, feel free to tell me?”

Camus taps a finger on the handle of his teacup, thinking; the china rings out a little as he strikes it. He really doesn’t want to bring up the Mikaze thing, especially if it means tipping his hand more than he already has, but Kurusu’s as good a source as he’s likely to find. And, well, he’s just gathering information. For the alliance.

“In that case. I want to know what you know about Mikaze.”

Kurusu is clearly, visibly, baffled. “Uh, should you really be asking this? You’ve been working with him way longer than me.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Have you noticed anything strange about him during rehearsals? Or during the first performance?”

“Ai’s always kind of strange, though.”

Mikaze’s no stranger than anyone else he works with, and actually a good deal less than most, but that isn’t the point. “Answer the question.”

Kurusu makes a face he can’t quite decipher. “So, maybe it isn’t my place to ask, but why do you wanna know?”

“He and I are trying to discover what caused our supposed chemistry onstage.”

“And you don’t think it’s the years of working together?”

“Something changed,” Camus says shortly. Kurusu had sounded almost sarcastic just then, and he doesn’t care for it. “It isn’t obvious, to either of us, what that was.”

“Well, you should probably ask Ren instead. I think they’ve been hanging out a lot.”

“I don’t want to speak to Jinguji.” 

Kurusu sighs. “Yeah, never mind, of course you don’t. But I’m just saying.”

“If you’re so eager to repay me,” he says, “then ask Jinguji about Mikaze in my place. And don’t let him know I’m the one who’s asking.”

“You know, that wasn’t really the kind of help I meant.”

“Then what did you want from me.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been wondering about you lately, I guess –”

“You and Kotobuki should form a coalition.”

“– but whatever,” says Kurusu, slumping back. “I’ll talk to Ren, but you should really just do it yourself.”

“He wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”

“You think he’d give _me_ one? He doesn’t even take me seriously half the time.”

“That seems to be your problem, now.”

“Ugh.”

“You aren’t going to go back on your word, are you.”

“You know,” he says, “I was trying to be nice, and you ended up twisting my arm for it. It's kind of impressive how immovable you are.”

And that’s just another word for stagnant, isn’t it. He stamps down yesterday’s memory of Kotobuki’s serious eyes. “But we have a deal.”

“I guess we do.” Kurusu raises his teacup, even though it’s nearly empty, and even though there’s no joy to it. “Cheers, I think.”

And Camus, downing his still-too-sour mango tea, will drink to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is kicking my ass. white day camus ran off with thousands of my prisms and didn't come home. and yet: i'm still here.
> 
> not sure when exactly the next update will be, since i need to focus on some other things, but i'll be chipping away at it and it'll definitely be within a month. and you're always welcome to come say hi to me on twitter in the meantime!


End file.
